What is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) Certification?

Earning a WAP certification is an excellent way to learn about the Wireless Application Protocol (which is what WAP stands for). WAP is now the world standard for wireless information and telephony services on digital mobile phones and other wireless terminals such as pagers, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and palmtop computers. It is the brainchild of the WAP Forum, a group of wireless industry companies that came together in 1997 and included founder members Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia.

In today’s busy world more and more people want the freedom to access services, information and entertainment whenever they want and wherever they are. This need is being increasingly met through the use of wireless handheld devices and it is already possible to use WAP terminals to do things like check a train timetable, buy a ticket or look up a phone numbers. As the technology evolves, so WAP certification and training will become increasingly desirable as the industry expands.

The aim of WAP is similar to that of the World Wide Web – it is a standardized technology for cross-platform, distributed computing - but its unique feature is that it was developed specifically to be used with handheld wireless devices which have no keyboard or mouse, often require one-handed navigation and have a low display capability, low bandwidth and low memory. Typically they use a Micro Browser - a small piece of software that makes minimal demands on hardware, memory and CPU – that displays information written in a restricted mark-up language called WML (Wireless Markup Language); this is the language used in the WAP system.

WML pages (the equivalent of HTML pages) are called ‘decks’ and decks are constructed as a set of ‘cards’. When a WAP client makes a request for remote information this request is sent back to the client in binary form (due to bandwidth restrictions) as a ‘deck of cards’; on receipt the client retrieves the first card off of the deck and displays it on the monitor. The deck of cards metaphor is designed specifically to take advantage of small display areas on handheld devices. Instead of continually requesting and retrieving cards (the WAP equivalent of HTML pages), each client request results in the retrieval of a deck of one or more cards.

Any WAP certification or training course should examine all of the above, including WML and WMLScript and aspects of Java servlets technology and JavaScript as they relate to WAP. It should also explain all about the WAP Protocol Stack which includes the Wireless Application Layer, the Wireless Datagram Protocol, the Wireless Session Protocol and the use of Wireless Transport Layer Security and its importance in developing secure wireless applications. Other important subjects include exploring how aspects of web technology such as XML and XHTML are used to support interactive wireless web applications, plus learning about hardware requirements and comparing different vendors of mobile handheld technology devices and systems.

WAP is a very new technology and training and certification are still in their infancy. Some courses are available online, at traditional colleges and universities, or offered by the bigger companies operating in the field today. If you are seeking to make a career in this industry a WAP certification is an excellent way to learn about this fast-changing field and prove to potential employers that you have the skills and knowledge they need.

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